On the 'defense' 2K19 launch stream the other day, Simnation's resident ex-baller NBA 2K Dev Scott O'Gallagher asked "how far is the closeout going?" during the Q&A portion. He was talking about the close-out mechanic, which is a suggestion that's been talked about for awhile and has many hardcore players excited. Why? Because we believe its a necessary feature. What's a close-out you ask? Think NBA basketball re: contesting an open shooter. You're at the elbow and Klay Thompson is open in the corner, ok? So currently the quickest way to close the distance to him is to sprint at him and hit the block button, but thats soooo last gen....because 1) trying to block jump-shots is a really, really, really bad idea and 2) now we have the ability to do floor contests. Gameplay should be punishing guys (especially non-shot blockers) who are still trying to block outside shots.
If we really want better, more authentic gameplay and for users to adopt new mechanics...we have to provide them with options that are intuitive, practical and just as effective (or more effective) than the dated options they were doing before. That's where the Close-out comes in.
Because OG's question is a valid one, no one wants to imbalance the game by giving defense the ability to contest from anywhere. And let's be clear: AT BEST we're talking light contests here, there shouldn't be any "smothered" defense that occurs when we close-out from distance. What we're actually doing is trying to prevent a Wide Open Shot. This doesn't differ from any other contest save the fact that its attempting to close distance. Its a carbon copy of the floor contest except the defender is moving. The assumption is that the defender is trying to meet the offensive player at a point, similar to the two videos below:
From our POV we see the close-out as akin to floor contests--with the offensive player further away. The paper, rock and scissors of it would be that the defender has committed himself to challenging a shot. That means an offense player who attacked the close-out with a dribble would be at significant advantage regarding beating the defender--as long as they possessed the skillset: We don't want any remixes of 2K18 here. On the other hand it would provide a nice counter to users who are static or trying to bait us with a pump fake like below:
Simple. Point the right stick at the shooter and your defender closes out. Here's an example of how closing out looks, watch Delly below:
Watch Saric close out on Ibaka here:
Look at the difference between these two shots by Covington:
The other thing this does is finally unlock gameplay that will allow us to finally draw fouls on guys who collide with shooters--or sidestep leaping defenders for open baskets. It also opens up the ability to attack close-outs which is ok now but needs just a bit more tuning. And most of all it gives the defense a quick, intuitive way to bother shots that isn't foul prone.
Well thanks for listening, until next time.
Kushmir
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